WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-01-09 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[Zuma’s men have seized control… Unity may be achieved… THROUGH VICTORY with Mbeki coming out a total loser. Jan]
By Deon de Lange and Moshoeshoe Monare
The authority of embattled ANC president Jacob Zuma was re-asserted on Monday as his key allies were elected to the party’s influential operational structure.
Four independent sources in the new national executive committee (NEC) confirmed that convicted fraudster Tony Yengeni, ANC Youth League president Fikile Mbalula, former Defence Force general Siphiwe Nyanda and SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande were elected to the National Working Committee, the “engine room” of the party.
Yengeni, the former ANC chief whip, spent months in jail for lying to the National Assembly about an underhand car discount associated with the arms deal.
Nyanda’s name also appeared, together with more than 30 others, who are alleged to be recipients of a big car mark-downs from a German company linked to the deal.
Ironically, Zuma is facing criminal charges stemming from the multibillion-rand arms deal that has rattled the ANC leadership.
Other NWC members include President Thabo Mbeki Cabinet ministers who differ with him on partisan issues, including Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and Transport Minister Jeff Radebe.
Radebe was so desperate to join the Zuma camp that he made himself available for the central committee of the SACP last year, but was rejected, along with other Mbeki ministers.
Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan, who made it known that he disproved of both Mbeki’s and Zuma’s presidential candidacy, was also elected to the NWC.
The independent-minded Jordan once challenged the impact of Zuma’s rape case on the reputation of the party, a taboo subject within the Zuma circle. Zuma was acquitted of rape.
Two senior leaders of the SACP Nzimande and its chairperson, Gwede Mantashe are now serving on the ANC’s powerful senior organs.
Mantashe was elected the ruling party’s secretary-general at its conference last month.
A source told the Cape Argus at the weekend that some SACP leaders were already discussing, informally, whether to allow Nzimande on the NWC for fear of incapacitating the communist party.
Nzimande fortified the SACP’s support for Zuma, in a fierce conflict with Mbeki.
Mbeki has called him extraordinarily arrogant, and warned the SACP not to turn the ANC into a socialist party.
The election of Zuma sympathisers on the NWC, which used to be the terrain of the Mbeki Cabinet, is likely to create the feared two centres of power.
Mbeki, whose grip on power is slipping after losing the ANC presidential vote to Zuma, and some of his allies stayed away from the NEC meeting on Monday.
Mbeki chose to attend to matters of state instead, meeting the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Pretoria while members of his organisation’s second highest decision-making body assembled in Kempton Park, Johannesburg.
Key Mbeki defender and government policy guru Joel Netshitenzhe told the Cape Argus that he did not attend the NEC meeting.
Their conspicuous absence signals a fractious relationship in store between the government and the ANC.
It remains to be seen whether Mbeki’s state of the nation address next month will reflect Zuma’s speech this Saturday to mark the party’s 96th birthday on Tuesday.
The so-called January 8 speech is seen as the ANC’s policy guideline to the government and its election manifesto ahead of the general elections next year.
The NEC did not thoroughly discuss the impact of criminal charges against Zuma, even though one NEC member said “we are unmoved on that one”.
He was referring to the national general council resolution in 2005 to support Zuma on the arms deal criminal case. But another NEC member said the matter and other and other sources of division on the succession had been deferred, as the NEC was pre-occupied with electing sub-committee members.
However, the Zuma case has proved a dilemma for the ruling party, as it has to decide who becomes the state president and how to fight elections while its own president heads for the courtroom.
Yengeni’s election to the NWC comes as he remains under correctional supervision after his release from prison last year. He served five months of a four-year sentence.
The conditions of his release initially included one that he remain under house detention during “that portion of the day or night when he does not work and is compelled to be at home”.
He may not leave the Cape Town magisterial district without permission from the head of Community Corrections.
He appears, however, to have been given permission to attend the ANC conference in Polokwane, and was photographed at Zuma’s homestead in KwaZulu-Natal shortly afterwards, before attending the first NEC meeting at Esselen in Johannesburg on Monday.
Last year Yengeni was arrested for alleged drink-driving. He is not permitted to “misuse alcohol or abuse drugs” under his supervision conditions. He is due to face the charge in court in March.
The Cape Argus last week submitted an application under the Freedom of Information Act, to obtain Yengeni’s apparently revised release conditions. Correctional Services has 30 days to respond.
– Additional reporting by Murray Williams